Obsession, and It Was Done Just Like That?

"Crack, crack~"

Brian pushed open the door to the small room.

The rapid clatter of keyboard keys flooded his ears.

Every so often, he could also hear his colleague Tom's shrill, excited curses.

The guy had headphones on and was completely absorbed in playing a game on the office computer, something similar to Warcraft from Brian's previous life.

Brian looked at the focused Tom, then glanced at the time and data on the game screen, and immediately understood.

No wonder Brian had made such a commotion earlier, yet Tom had acted as though he were deaf.

This game demanded extremely fast reflexes and intense concentration.

Tom probably wasn't pretending.

Thinking that, Brian breathed a sigh of relief.

Although the chance of his cheat being exposed was low, it would be troublesome if people suspected he had mental problems because of his strange behavior earlier.

Because he really was sick.

The engrossed Tom suddenly felt a chill down his back.

He instinctively turned around and met Brian's amiable gaze.

Tom thought Brian wanted to question why he had hidden in here to play games instead of helping after finishing his work. He hurriedly explained, "Buddy, it's not that I didn't want to help. I was just afraid my clumsy hands would cause you trouble."

Brian waved magnanimously. "It's fine. It's just that the injuries on the two corpses' faces were not only brutal, but also highly similar. This probably wasn't a simple murder case."

At the mention of the case,

Tom, a former detective, perked up.

He stopped playing, tossed aside his headset, and eagerly began analyzing the situation.

"The traces left by this case are obvious.

Both victims clearly died from blunt-force trauma. There was blood spatter at the scene, and the wounds were scattered and chaotic, which showed that the killer was extremely excited when he attacked.

Also, based on the examination of the scene, the two victims' times of death were less than half an hour apart.

That meant that after killing one victim, the killer attacked the other without the slightest hesitation.

Do you know what that meant?"

"What did it mean?"

Brian felt that after hearing Tom's analysis, an idea was trying to leap out in his mind.

But it seemed to get stuck.

The thought lingered in his head, yet he simply could not put it into words.

Perhaps that was the difference in intelligence between ordinary people and geniuses.

Seeing no reaction from Brian, Tom could not help rolling his eyes.

"It showed that the killer had a very clear purpose.

The two female victims were neighbors.

The killer most likely had conflicts with both victims, or they shared some kind of dispute over interests."

After saying that,

Tom confidently declared,

"This information is far too obvious!

I bet my former colleagues at the detective bureau could arrest the killer within a few days at most."

"So that was it."

Brian nodded thoughtfully, then felt somewhat discouraged.

His colleague Tom had never had any particularly outstanding achievements during his career as a detective.

Yet in many areas, such as logical ability, he still completely outclassed Brian.

Back in college, the coursework had not been too advanced. With hard work, Brian had not felt much pressure from his classmates.

But once he came to the Forensic Bureau,

every colleague around him was a top student with a high IQ.

Even someone like Tom, who had been assigned to fieldwork, had been a seasoned veteran in a related industry before joining the Forensic Bureau.

Brian often felt as though his intelligence was not enough for him to fit into this group. In the end, he had only barely managed to get by through using his abundant secondhand car resources to bribe the senior forensic examiners.

The gap between people

was sometimes even greater than the gap between a person and a dog.

Brian wondered whether his cheat could make up for his brain.

Brian shook his head. Remembering his purpose, he quickly suppressed his wandering thoughts and changed the subject. "The two victims were neighbors and had fixed residences. Their information should be easy to collect, right?"

Tom nodded. "Yeah. The database has their basic information."

As he spoke, he handed Brian two printed reports that still smelled of ink.

Neither report was very thick.

A color portrait photograph of a woman was clipped to the upper-right corner of each with a paper clip.

Brian looked at the first report.

The victim was named Carolina Ellis, thirty-four years old, unemployed.

She had been imprisoned twice for prostitution and organizing prostitution.

Carolina Ellis had been married three times.

But due to physical reasons, she had never had any children.

Her final husband was named Andreas Cook.

Huh?!

Brian's spirits rose when he saw that name!

Wasn't that the obsession of the corpse on the right?

The two of them had actually been husband and wife?

Then why was the victim's obsession to kill Andreas? And judging from how she referred to him, she seemed extremely furious at her own husband.

Could it be...

Brian suddenly understood.

The killer was Andreas?

Brian hurriedly looked at the other report.

This should have been the basic information for the corpse on the left.

Brian first glanced at the photograph.

It showed a blonde woman with a very gentle smile.

The moment one saw her, one would instinctively think of spring sunshine—gentle but not scorching—and feel their mood brighten without realizing it.

Then Brian recalled the mangled face he had seen in the morgue van.

Even Brian, whose heart had long since gone numb, could not help sighing.

Why did beautiful things always suffer unfortunate fates?

With regret in his heart,

Brian lowered his gaze.

The gentle woman was named Emmaline Keller. She was twenty-seven this year, worked for a housekeeping company, and had no criminal record.

Emmaline Keller had been married once.

However, her husband's status on the information sheet was listed as deceased.

That meant Emmaline Keller was not divorced, but a widow.

However, she had a daughter.

Her daughter was three years old this year, and her full name was Ellie Dyke.

'Ellie'!

Brian immediately picked out the key piece of information!

The obsession of the corpse on the left was to ensure Ellie survived safely!

Could it be that she had been worrying about her daughter before she died?

That had to be it!

The victim, Emmaline Keller, was a widow, and her daughter was only three years old.

When the killer committed the murder,

Emmaline Keller's daughter Ellie had most likely been inside the house as well!

But Tom had said there were only two victims at the scene.

Had the killer spared Ellie?

Or had he taken the three-year-old girl, Ellie, away?

Brian feigned regret. "The victim named Emmaline Keller has such a gentle smile, and her daughter is only three. Sigh."

Tom sighed along with him.

"Emmaline Keller died in the bathroom.

Luckily, her daughter was asleep upstairs at the time.

The person who reported the case was Andreas, the other victim's husband.

He and his wife had a huge argument over financial issues.

Andreas went to a bar to drink.

When he returned,

he found his wife dead in the living room and reported it.

At the time, the police sealed off the scene and knocked on the door of the neighboring victim, Emmaline Keller, hoping to ask for information. They woke the little girl upstairs.

That was when the police discovered there was another victim here."

Hearing that the little girl was safe,

Brian felt a weight lift from his heart.

Almost at the same time,

the countless blood-red points of light that had surged into his mind, representing the obsession of the corpse on the left, transformed into a blonde woman with a gentle smile. She thanked Brian, then turned into countless rays of light and completely merged into his body.

Brian was a little dumbfounded.

The obsession was completed just like that?

Then... where was my reward?

Alright, brothers, good night.